The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Ice is used in a wide variety of commercial and personal contexts, with a related variety of ice making and dispensing machines known. As cubed or crushed, such ice may be used to fill water bottles, hydration bladders, or other beverage containers or the like for keeping a beverage cold for later consumption or to fill a cooler or ice chest or the like to keep food, beverages, and other items or perishables cold as desired. Most often, such ice is dispensed from a refrigerator/freezer, whether within the freezer or “ice box” thereof where the “ice maker” is located or from a water and/or ice service point in the door of the refrigerator. In traditional commercial contexts, including hotels and restaurants, gyms and spas, and other such locations, industrial ice vending machines may be provided generally characterized by their relatively larger capacity and dedicated purpose of ice vending.
Such residential or commercial ice making and dispensing units typically have a built-in substantially vertically oriented chute somewhere on the front of the machine for ease of access and through which ice is dispensed, actuation often being achieved through pushing on the chute itself or on a button in the vicinity of the chute, whether by hand or with the container to be filled with ice, in either case the container, and particularly the mouth thereof, being positioned below the dispensing chute so that the dispensed ice can be directed into the container as desired. To facilitate such filling, a shelf or ledge is typically provided some distance below the chute on which the container may be placed as it is filled, with the chute itself thus being over the shelf or ledge and thus inset relative to the front surface of the ice vending machine, again whether residential refrigerator or commercial ice machine. Such shelf or ledge is also often equipped with a tray or drain to address excess dispensed ice or ice that otherwise does not make it into the desired container.
There are a number of drawbacks and challenges associated with such known means of ice dispensing, primarily centered around attempting to get ice into a variety of containers without spilling ice on the floor, which results in waste, a wet mess to clean up, and potentially a dangerous “slip and fall” situation. As noted above, in most ice machines, there is a dedicated space beneath the ice dispensing chute that is configured to accommodate a range of containers. The problem is that this physical space is inherently limited and often does not accommodate taller or odd-shaped containers, let alone coolers or ice chests or the like. As such, getting ice into such containers is not easily achieved, and therefore often involves the inconvenience of using one's hands and/or incrementally filling the desired container using some other intermediate container such as a cup. If a cooler or ice chest is to be filled, this becomes a cumbersome and time-consuming process, potentially involving a number of steps or the need for multiple people to help support the cooler in a suspended position relative to the chute for filling, even then only being able to potentially position one corner of the cooler, if that, underneath the chute. Inevitably, with any of these approaches much ice is spilled and ends up on the floor to be cleaned up, adding further time and inconvenience to the task of simply trying to fill a cooler or other container with ice. Similarly, depending on the size, shape, and location of the opening formed in the container into which ice is to be dispensed, and relatedly, how close the mouth or opening of the container can be positioned to the ice machine dispenser chute, further challenges in getting ice into the container may be presented that are simply not adequately addressed by typical chute and dispensing systems.
In an attempt to address such problems, one relatively recent product has been introduced, manufactured and sold by E.K. Ekcessories dba EK USA in Logan, Utah under the name “Ice Shoot.” The Ice Shoot consists essentially of a somewhat curved rigid chute or funnel having an opening at each end sized and configured to place one such opening adjacent an ice dispensing chute and the opposite such opening on, in, or adjacent to the mouth or opening of the container to be filled with ice. However, the Ice Shoot has a number of shortcomings of its own. By being of a rigid construction, no adjustment of its length is possible to better accommodate the range of ice dispensing machines, and particularly the location or height of the dispensing chute and related size and configuration of the shelf or ledge area beneath the chute, and/or the range of containers to be filled, particularly coolers or ice chests in a variety of sizes and shapes that in most if not virtually all cases will best remain on the ground as they are filled, which again presents challenges since the Ice Shoot is of a finite and relatively short length of approximately only one foot. Relatedly, by again being of a rigid construction, the Ice Shoot is not as easily stored or transported, leading to a further practical limitation on its use. Thus, the Ice Shoot product is quite limited in its actual use and performance, essentially tailored to filling bottles and hydration bladders and the like, but again, even there not as conveniently when “on the go.”
All publications identified herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Thus, there is still a need for a device that more effectively facilitates filling a variety of containers with ice as desired from a variety of ice making and dispensing machines in a variety of contexts. Aspects of the present invention fulfill these needs and provide further related advantages as described in the following summary.